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Supermodel Defends ATV Baby Photo; "Captain Sully" Speaks On Fifth Anniversary Of "Miracle On The Hudson River"; Apple To Refund $32.5M For Kids' In-App Purchases; Dad Finds His Two Kids Dead In Florida Home, Allegedly Killed By His Ex-Wife; Obama Talks Economy In North Carolina; Fallon And Springsteen Tweak Christie; Poll: Christie Still Strong In New Jersey
Aired January 15, 2014 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Just about the bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
And now we talk about supermodel Gisele Bundchen. She is making headlines and defending herself once again for a provocative photo taken while she was away on vacation holding her baby daughter, Vivian Lake. Take a look. TMZ posted this photo of a poparatzo (ph), snapped it of her. She was in Costa Rica last weekend riding this ATV, clutching her one-year-old in one arm, the other hand there on the handle bars. You can see, no helmet on either of them. And you've checked Twitter, you've checked Facebook, social media I mean just went absolutely crazy questioning the Brazilian model's parenting skills. And I feel like we were just talking about her because you remember the last time, mother of two, she was blasted for this Instagram picture she posted. Here she was caught a lot of flak when she, you know -- showing she can be a mother, she can multitask, she can, you know, breast-feed surrounded by this glam squad. And her comments about being a working mother not popular with some who found it kind of offensive to other mom who have jobs.
Mrs. Brady is no stranger to controversy when it comes to motherhood, so with me now Denise Albert and Melissa Musen Gerstein from "The Moms" on Sirius XM.
So to "The Moms," welcome. Nice to see you ladies again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I actually caught some flak for lashing out at her last time.
BALDWIN: Well, I have a feeling there may be lashing this time, Ladies. So if I recall we had a bit of an intense debate when we saw the multitasking Gisele bunch in last time. This photo, Denise, to you first, and then Melissa, you see this picture of her on the ATV, Dennis, what do you think?
DENISE ALBERT, THEMOMS.COM: Well, clearly it's not a selfie, but the first question is who took the picture for her to put it out there and why does she think that that is going to take away from her last photo? To be honest with you, I might actually defend her just a little bit. I sort of hope that she is going mile per hour, which is I think what her PR person said after the fact.
Listen, as parents I think that, you know, we all do things that are not the brightest sometimes. My son wanted to sit in the front seat of a Wrangler. He is 8-year-old so I let him do it for, you know, maybe a mile with a friend, you know, that was going also with 3 miles per hour.
I personally wouldn't do this with my children, but I understand how it happens. I question her photography in this case and who is getting that close to her in Costa Rica to put that photo out.
BALDWIN: Melissa, I will let you jump in, in just a minute. But just, Denise, you are exactly right. Let me quote the reps for Gisele saying she was on a private beach driving very, very slowly. Melissa, does that make you feel better? I mean, this was maybe for a mom and her daughter and she wanted a cute picture on an ATV crawling along.
MELISSA MUSEN GERSTEIN, THEMOMS.COM: Sorry. This photo makes me cringe. It's ignorant parenting 100 percent. When you are a public figure like Gisele and she knows she is out there and she knows she is controversial, she needs to be smart. Because there is going to be some stupid parent out there who sees it and goes OK, if she can do it, I can do it. You know what? I'm not only worried about her baby, but where is her helmet? She is going to lose all of her endorsements if she falls off that thing. You hit one rock, one bump.
BALDWIN: Protect her beautiful head as well, which by the ways, is illegal to do in Costa Rica. Let me just in and just read. This is a really popular mommy blog. We go to cafemom.com a lot for segments like this. The title of this article, "Gisele Bundchen takes her baby on an ATV ride, is she not?"
Mary Fisher writes, "Let me get this straight. Gisele thinks breastfeeding should be a law, but she is OK with cruising around on an ATV with no helmets in sight even for her baby? Yes, something doesn't quite add up here."
Denise, back to you, would it make a difference if let's say she was not moving on the ATV. She just got the picture for photography sake, no bigs?
ALBERT: I mean, I don't -- again, I sort of like I take the lenient way with this photo again as long as she was going one mile an hour. I wouldn't do it with my child. I hope other people won't follow suit here and do it, but you know, I think we all as parents do things that sometimes we regret, you know, as long as she didn't claim to be multitasking in this picture, I think I am going to give her a little bit of a break here.
GERSTEIN: I mean, here's the thing, her publicist said, you know, she might have been going very, very slowly. Where is the stopwatch? We don't know. She is covering her you know what here. It's a dangerous photo and it was really stupid, really stupid. Let's be safe, parents.
BALDWIN: OK, ladies, got to pull away. Denise and Melissa, thank you very much.
Let's stay in New York and talk about the miracle on the Hudson. It was years ago this very moment, 155 people were sitting on a U.S. Airways plane getting ready to take off from New York's LaGuardia Airport, but in moments, their lives would change forever. Here is how it unfolded live on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLF BLITZER, HOST, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": Breaking news story right here in THE SITUATION ROOM, a U.S. Airways plane you see it right there is in the Hudson River. It's an Airbus A-320, 135 people we are told on board. This is U.S. Airways Flight 1549 from LaGuardia in New York City scheduled to go to Charlotte, North Carolina.
We are told shortly after take-off it went into the Hudson River, which is not far away as you know from LaGuardia Airport. This is right off of Manhattan and people all over Manhattan were watching this plane go into the water shortly after taking off from LaGuardia.
We have no indications of injuries or anything along those lines although if you take a look at the pictures, you see lots of boats and ferries all-around that plane. You can see much of the plane still above the water, but some of it beginning to go underneath.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: So that was Wolf five years ago handling the breaking news. What we later learned is it was a flock of geese that hit the plane, but thanks to the quick thinking of the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, everyone on board survived. Speaking of, let's go right to Sulley Sullenberg speaking right now in New York to mark that moment. Let's listen.
CAPTAIN CHESLEY SULLENBERGER, PILOT, U.S. AIRWAYS FLIGHT 1549: -- 155 people faced a sudden unexpected challenge. Many people came together and did their jobs exceedingly well to give us such a wonderful outcome. But landing in the Hudson only solved the first and biggest problem of the day. It didn't solve the problem. We then had to find a way to get 155 people out of the Hudson River to safety on a day when the air temperature was 21 degrees and the water was 38. Many had gotten wet.
Fortunately, without waiting for any official notification on their own initiative, New York Waterway employees observed the landing and radioed their vessels and began to turn them towards us. The first New York waterway ferry we know from watching the surveillance tapes arrived alongside Flight 1549 less than 4 minutes after we stopped in the Hudson.
By the time I left the aircraft after the evacuation was complete as the last person off the aircraft, the aircraft was surrounded by rescue vessels and the rescue of everyone on board was well under way. We have much to be thankful for. Much was saved that day. It's the efforts not only of the crew, the rescuers, and the first responders that everyone survived. Had even one person not survived, I personally couldn't have celebrated any of this.
On their own initiative, several years before, New York waterway performed for their vessels safety equipment not required by U.S. Coast Guard regulations. A cradle that was essential in helping people to get from the water level up to the deck of the vessels, some eight or ten feet above them.
We had one passenger on Flight 1549 who had boarded the aircraft leaving LaGuardia in a wheelchair who had to be assisted up. We had a young family of four including the youngest passenger in the flight who was less than a-year-old. There was much cooperative effort. The passengers themselves behaved admirably.
Thank you for coming to help us celebrate this day. We can't thank enough the captains and crews of all of the vessels who came to our aid when we very much needed every bit of help they could give us.
BALDWIN: I can't believe it's been five years. Captain Chesley Sullenberger. We will be talking to two of the passengers who were on board that plane five years ago this moment when they heard the captain come over the intercom say this is your captain, brace for impact. Talk about priority change, talk about time for the bucket list starting. Today we will talk to these two passengers and ask how their lives have changed at the top of next hour.
Coming up, do you have children? Have they racked up huge bills buying apps on your iPhone? If so, Apple could be paying you back. They announced a major settlement today. That story for you in just a moment.
Later, have you seen this? Jimmy Fallon doing an amazing Springsteen. By the way, standing and playing alongside the boss himself. What did they team up for you ask? Well, here is a hint, it involves this guy, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: All right, parents, I'm talking to you, your kids with one of these. If your child racked up a big bill playing an app on your iPhone without your permission, you could be getting money back. Apple agreed to give full refunds for tokens and other goods kids bought through mobile apps without mom or dad's consent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDITH RAMIREZ, FTC CHAIRWOMAN: One consumer reported that her daughter spent $2,600 in the app "Cap Pet Hotel."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Did she just say $2600? My goodness on an app, I'm sorry, I'm still computing that. Alison Kosik, how many people actually get these checks? ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know what? It could be tens of thousands of people, Brooke, because that's the number of complaints that the FTC got. You count that all together and those people reported millions of dollars in unauthorized charges. You know, you asked about the $2600, it's huge, but it's really not the norm, most charges were from 99 cents to $100. But there were people who did reported $500 charges.
BALDWIN: Should I know what these apps are maybe because I don't have kids?
KOSIK: That's OK. I don't even know what they are and I have kids.
So if you were one of these people, you can get a full refund. Let me walk you through what happened here because what happened was these kids bought these mobile apps and the virtual currency without getting their parents' consent. So if you are the parent, you have to enter a password before the kids can buy anything. Once you put that in, this was active and open for 15 minutes.
If the purchase takes 2 minutes, the parent walks away. The kids still have the phone and they keep racking up the charges. Apple is in trouble for not telling parents about this 15-minute window. They have to pay at least $32 million.
BALDWIN: Sneaky kiddies. Alison Kosik, thank you.
Now a husband gets an e-mail from his ex-wife warning him she wants to hurt herself and her family. He rushes to the family home and makes a discovery. His ex-wife dead from a suicide and his two kids, talented teenage musicians shot dead, allegedly killed by their own mother. Joining me now is CNN's Nick Valencia. Horrible, but do we know what led to this?
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it all started with that e- mail. He got this very cryptic and bizarre e-mail from his ex-wife saying that she was going to do harm to herself and her two kids. That's when he made his way over there and it was actually a neighbor, Brooke, that went inside that home and made that very grizzly discovery.
He was outside, but you know, that dramatic phone call, him on the phone with police dispatch as he realizes that his two teenagers, very talented teenagers had been killed apparently in a murder suicide. Neighbors were very shocked by this news of what happened to this family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAWN ALBA, FRIEND: I loved Alex and Jackie so much. They are like my own kids. Alex was always at my house. He's my son's best friend.
JEAN THOMAS, NEIGHBOR: Very shocking. She was a sweet lady. I would describe her as a southern lady. She had a really southern accent and sounded very educated
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VALENCIA: Another neighbor said that there was a noticeable change in her demeanor in the last couple of days. The family was going through some financial turmoil. They lived in an upscale neighborhood, but things on the inside. They still had money issues. There was financial turmoil. Court documents that we got our hands on file late last year. She said she had to sell her late father's watch to pay for gas and groceries and kid's clothing.
They had just been divorced a month prior, but he was also going through his own financial problems according to this court paperwork as well. He had racked up debt of $2,000 a month and over all had about $790,000 in debt as late as last year. They were well-known real estate brokers, but hit hard by the financial crisis and housing bubble burst and really led to this financial turmoil in the home.
Married for about 20 years and recently divorced and now this very grizzly discovery, two bright futures, I mean, they were -- local media report saying straight A students, one a violinist and the other a cellist, their life is cut short -- Brooke.
BALDWIN: Nick Valencia, thank you.
VALENCIA: You bet.
BALDWIN: Coming up next here, we are talking about new polls showing Chris Christie not losing favor with folks in New Jersey amidst some scandals involving his administration that we have been reporting on, but this as we are getting word subpoenas maybe coming tomorrow. Stay here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Well, President Obama in North Carolina today pushing Congress to pass more funding for unemployment insurance, but that was not the only economic issue on tap. He was also there to promote the newest high tech manufacturing hub. Here he was talking at North Carolina State University.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: This will help big companies will help small companies because they are going to be able to use equipment they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to test and prototype new products, and of course, American workers will come right here to North Carolina to learn the skills that companies are looking for. The next generation of manufacturing will be an American revolution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: After the speech, President Obama plans to name a new leader of the Small Business Administration. She is Maria Contrera Sweet. She is a founder and board chair in Los Angeles.
Now to something I didn't realize until today. I knew Chris Christie was a major fan of Bruce Springsteen, but I did not know Chris Christie claims he has been to more than 100 Springsteen shows. Governor Christie said he has been to a Bruce Springsteen concert 130 times. That's a lot of midnight power drives. Chris Christie knows the real boss from the impostor, but let's see if you do. Take a look.
(VIDEO CLIP OF BRUCE SPRINGTEEN AND JIMMY FALLON SINGING)
BALDWIN: Bruce Springsteen got the '80s look going right there, appearing last night on NBC if you can figure it out and Jimmy Fallon. Gloria Borger, let me bring you in now, our chief political an as quickly as we watched that. We want to know we have that awesome wig. Let me ask you this. Do you think that could help Chris Christie, that jam session?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, Chris Christie, of course, is going to laugh at that and think it's fabulous. He should laugh at it and he's a big Bruce Springsteen fan. So I don't think it hurts them when you enjoy people who are making fun of you and speaking of you, I think that's all to the good.
BALDWIN: OK, let's talk about the new poll. It shows surprisingly little damage to Christie post traffic jam scandal, at least among folks in New Jersey. You see the number, 55 percent still approve of the job he is doing. Quinnipiac University conducted this poll and believe or not, in the wake of this whole scandal, Christie's bully rating is one of the lowest he's had at 45 percent. This is a category adopted just for Chris Christie by these pollsters. That's a word used to describe him many times. So you, Gloria Borger, have this column out today that said that the traffic jam scandal raises real questions about Christie's temperament as it relates to governing. I believe the word you use was petty in your headline. Are you surprised, first of all, when you look at those poll numbers, surprised at that --
BORGER: Look, the numbers have been all over the place and another New Jersey poll said that 44 percent of the people in the state of New Jersey didn't think he had the right temperament to be president. That's a big number. I think people are kind of stepping back from this now. People in New Jersey have been paying a lot of attention to it. People and the rest of the country, not so much and I think he is going to be judged by how he handles this right now -- Brooke.
BALDWIN: To your point yesterday before the "State of the State."
BORGER: That's right. How he can get out of this and whether he does it with good nature and good humor. By the way, what the state legislature turns up, you know, because they are going to be doing a detailed investigation. They are issuing subpoenas. They are going to be looking at a lot of e-mails and the texts. This has to be peeled back.
We don't know all the details. In terms of the temperament issue though, the point is that even though Chris Christie said he knew nothing about this, people in his office were doing this because they thought it would make him happy. When you work for a governor or a senator or a president, you don't like to bring them bad news. You like to do things that please them.
BALDWIN: Well, that didn't work.
BORGER: There is an environment in which they thought this would somehow make him happy.
BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, no, it did not, not at all. A 108 minutes of hearing about that last week. All right, Gloria, thank you very much in Washington. Read Gloria's column, cnn.com/opinion.
Coming up, a new report on the attacks out of Benghazi, it has been released, 15 people were cooperating with the FBI are now dead. We have those details and we will take you live to Florida where a man allegedly shot and killed a fellow movie-goer because he was texting during the previews. Stay here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Everyone loves rumors especially when they are true. A 600- pound woman loses 370 pounds without surgery. Here's today's CNN pop.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN (voice-over): Big news from Fleetwood Mac, 16 years after deciding to go her own way and 37 years after the band put their relationships, affairs and break ups to music on a smash album, "Rumors," singer and keyboardist, Christine McVie is back. Fleetwood Mac publicist is cheesing a possible tour for the, quote, "Full Tilt Maxters" this year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Say my name.
BALDWIN: Somebody has gone all Hizenberg in New Mexico inspired by "Breaking Bad." This is not exactly up to Walter Whites standards. Chemicals are used to turn it blue and it's making people sick. Val McCloud said being fat made her sick so she did something about it. She lot of 370 pounds. Her secret is old fashioned diet and exercise and said if she can do it, anyone can.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Release the resistance. Let go of the limitations. It's a lie you can do it.
BALDWIN: Making it easier to stick to your diet, pizza by the slice from Pizza Hut. It's the first four big chain pizza joints where competition is called for bigger and fattier pies. Pizza Hut is testing pizza by the slice at two stores, and if it's a hit, it could go nationwide. That's today's CNN Pop.
(END VIDEOTAPE)